this week, classic luk thung ballads from the one & only sayansanya! born & raised in central thailand's suphan buri province, sayan grew up farming rice with his family. he started his musical career as a dancer in phongsiworanut's group, gradually moving up to backup singer and eventually forming his own band in 1973. through the 80's & early 90's he paired up with phumphuang duangchan and reigned as the biggest of luk thung stars. this cassette rounds up his early hits, dating from the late 70's. the band's slow, dense arrangements behind sayan's nasal crooning have always made a winning combination for me. hope you enjoy as well!

i hope everyone will pardon another of my occasional digressions from thai music today, but i wanted to give a heads up to all n.y.-area readers: the legendary 70's burmese "stereo" star khine htoo will be performing in the city saturday, june 30th at the laguardia performing arts center in long island city. he will be joined by tin zar maw, chaw su khin & supan htwar for their "3 generations tour u.s.a.". khine htoo was among a handful of pioneering rock stars who won fame in the 70's & 80's for penning original compositions, or "own tunes" (the majority of burmese popular music consists of foreign cover songs) which he performed with his bands the phoenix and later the aces (who back him on this 1981 cassette). all credit to dr. lun swe for originally sharing this classic recording at his blog. enjoy!

enchanting songs of thailand

a collection of great music made by the people of thailand; luk thung, luk krung, molam, regional folk styles & more. mostly recorded from tape, sound quality should be pretty good (unless stated otherwise). transliteration is done using the royal thai general system of transcription. feedback/re-upload requests/etc. always appreciated!